1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to telecommunications systems. More particularly, the invention relates to a call referral system and method that permits a called party to control the number of simultaneous incoming calls and the treatment and routing of excess calls.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Business telephone customers frequently receive more calls than their telephone equipment or operators can efficiently handle. The calls that exceed the capacity of the equipment or operators either receive a busy signal or are put on hold until the telephone equipment or an operator becomes available to handle the calls. The inability to efficiently handle all incoming calls may seriously affect a business because customers who cannot contact a business or who are put on hold too long may choose to call a competitor instead. These problems can become especially severe if the number of incoming calls unexpectedly peaks due to increased business activity or if the number of operators taking calls unexpectedly decreases due to absences or other unplanned events.
To deal with these problems, many businesses buy and operate call referral equipment such as automatic call distributors or routers that route excess calls within the telephone network at the business. However, these systems are expensive and difficult to operate. They require specially trained personnel to change the routing instructions if a business wishes to modify the handling and routing of excess calls. Additionally, these systems must be connected with the telecommunication provider's network if a business wishes to route excess calls to destinations served by other equipment. This further increases the costs of the systems. Another limitation of customer-operated call referral systems is that they can only queue calls once the calls have been connected to the systems. Unfortunately, this ties up the customer equipment until the calls are rerouted. Committing a call to a location, and then re-routing the call to another location is highly inefficient.
Call referral systems operated by telecommunications providers are also known in the art. For example, AT&T operates a call referral system that permits a telephone customer to control the number of incoming calls and to select the treatment of excess calls. Similarly, Sprint, the assignee of the present application, has operated a call referral system with similar features. Although these prior art network-operated call referral systems eliminate the need for businesses to purchase and operate their own call referral equipment, they also suffer from several limitations. For example, prior AT&T systems rerouted excess calls or queued calls based on a set of instructions that were provided by the called party when the called party subscribed to the service. These pre-set instructions are difficult to modify and thus prevent businesses from tailoring their routing instructions efficiently to accommodate changing business conditions, such as changes in the number of operators or fluctuations in the volume of incoming calls.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved call referral system that permits business telephone customers to control the number of simultaneous incoming calls and the treatment and routing of excess calls without purchasing and operating expensive and complicated automatic call distributors and routers. There is also a need for such a system to have an automatic interface that permits a business to quickly and easily modify the instructions for handling incoming calls so that the business can tailor the handling of calls to accommodate changing business and operating conditions.